Real Brownfields Deserve Dollars I
read with interest the story on Brownfield development dollars in the
July 20 issue. I applaud Dan Lathrop and other county commissioners who
voted “No” on the Randolph Street project...

Hopping Mad Carlin
Smith is hopping mad (“Will You Get Mad With Me?” 7-20-15). Somebody
filed a fraudulent return using his identity, and he’s not alone. The AP
estimates the government “pays more than $5 billion annually in
fraudulent tax refunds.” Well, many of us have been
hopping mad for years. This is because the number one tool Congress has
used to fix this problem has been to cut the IRS budget –by $1.2 billion
in the last 5 years...

Just Grumbling, No Solutions Mark
Pontoni’s grumblings [recent Northern Express column] tell us much
about him and virtually nothing about those he chooses to denigrate. We
do learn that Pontoni may be the perfect political candidate. He’s
arrogant, opinionated and obviously dimwitted...

A Racist Symbol I
have to respond to Gordon Lee Dean’s letter claiming that the
confederate battle flag is just a symbol of southern heritage and should
not be banned from state displays. The heritage it represents was the
treasonous effort to continue slavery by seceding from a democratic
nation unwilling to maintain such a consummate evil...

Not So Thanks I
would like to thank the individual who ran into and knocked over my
Triumph motorcycle while it was parked at Lowe’s in TC on Friday the
24th. The $3,000 worth of damage was greatly appreciated. The big dent
in the gas tank under the completely destroyed chrome badge was an
especially nice touch...

Lighting it Up on Torch

For summer fun, nothing quite holds a candle to Torch.

As
Michigan’s second-largest inland lake, its 41 miles of sandy shoreline
have hosted countless bonfires, sing-a-longs, midnight swims, and family
gatherings. And most summer weekends, its giant southside sandbar draws
thousands of boaters, families, and partiers. The sandbar scene is like
nothing else, continuing to generate controversy, memories, debate, and
wild times.

On hot
July weekends, Dave Berghoff anchors his pontoon on the sandbar early,
ready to sling burgers to hundreds of knee-deep revelers.

“If I’ve got all my ducks in a row, I try to get on the water between eight and nine,” the Burger Barge owner says.

He
stays late — 12 hours or more, until he runs out of food or a gap opens
in the rows of boats that surround the sandbar party throughout the
day.

For people like
Berghoff, who serve the partygoers, or the police, who try to keep them
in line, the Torch Lake sandbar means a lot of work.

For
young people and families, the sandbar is a fun place to spend hot
summer days. For many who own lakefront homes near the sandbar, the
party is an irritation or worse.

CARIBBEAN BLUE WATER

The party doesn’t rage like it once did. A 2007 Northern Express story highlighted drunkenness, fights, and topless women.

Today,
while the party isn’t sedate, there is less underage drinking, fewer
fights, and those who are rowdy enough to come to the attention of the
police wind up in a mobile jail parked in a fire station parking lot.

Twenty-five-year-old
Christopher Hutchens has been coming to the sandbar since he was a kid
from his family’s Elk Lake cottage and he said he’s never seen a woman
bare her breasts at the sandbar.

For
the Columbus, Mo. resident, the sandbar is just a fun place to spend
weekends with friends. Hutchens is so enamored he started a Facebook fan
page which has garnered nearly 1,400 likes in a year.

Hutchens
said there is no doubt the sandbar has become a destination for young
people who want to party, but he believes it’s still a safe place for
children.

Given what the sandbar offers — Caribbean blue water, soft sand, a stunning drop-off — he sees the popularity as inevitable.

“It’s
just awesome to swim and hang out with friends,” he said. “I think [the
popularity is] a good thing, but it’s kind of a curse too, because
there is limited land and space available.”

‘WHY WE’RE HERE’

Rowdy
behavior began to drop off in 2009, when the sheriffs of Antrim and
Kalkaska counties agreed to disregard the county line that dissects the
sandbar.

Sheriffs
Daniel Bean and David Israel cross-deputized officers to work the sand
bar. Scores of state troopers and Department of Natural Resources
officers joined the patrol.

Recent events demonstrate how much the police are needed.

Last
summer a man was paralyzed in a dive from his boat at the drop off,
where the water can be deep at one end of a speedboat and shallow at the
other, Antrim County Undersheriff Dean Pratt said.

With
thousands of people gathered around, it’s a challenge for emergency
workers to reach people who are in trouble. Folks came to this man’s aid
almost right away, but he succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

Drownings in recent years also demonstrate the danger when alcohol, water and sun mix.

“We’ve
had some drownings there, just off of the tip of the sandbar, a couple
of years in a row,” Israel said. “That’s why we’re there. We’re not
trying to stop anybody’s good time. We’re trying to protect them from
themselves.”

LOTS OF MIPs

The
patrols are planned to keep the sandbar safe and to minimize the
disruption to lakefront property owners, Israel said. They’ve focused on
underage drinking and they’ve targeted drunk drivers.

“It was never our intent to stop people from enjoying themselves,” Israel said. “We’re definitely not there to run anybody out.”

Pratt agrees the sandbar is far less rowdy in recent years.

He said police begin to plan in March and they are out on the lake throughout the season.

New
approaches have led to new problems, though. For instance, Pratt said
they discovered sending officers on foot patrol onto the sandbar was a
great way to catch minors in possession of alcohol.

It also caused young people to stick beerbottles into the sand, posing a danger for people later on.

“Each
year we kept developing and developing, and now we’ve seen a reduction
in MIPs, we’ve seen a reduction in assaults,” he said. “I don’t think
the crowd has shrunk at all. I think there’s still a need for us to be
there.”

‘IT’S THE WALK-ONS’

A
property owners association that formed in the 1990s to stop a large
marina development at the north end of the lake nowadays focuses much of
its time on the sandbar at the south end.

Greg Payne, president of the Torch Lake Protection Alliance, said his house looks directly onto the sandbar.

TLPA
raises money to pay for extra police patrols and additional
porta-potties. Payne said the group isn’t against the sandbar gathering;
they want to make sure it’s peaceful and civilized.

“We’ve
taken the position that it’s going to be there anyway, so we’re really
trying to help the situation,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to represent
ourselves as an organization that wants to shut this down.”

Payne believes most problems come from people who park and
walk into the lake. “The boat traffic generally isn’t the issue. It’s
the walk-ons,” Payne said. “The walkers are really what brings the most
problems. … The people in the boats, they stay on their boats for the
most part and observe the masses.”

‘NOBODY LIKES IT’

Payne has lived on Torch Lake full-time for five years and seasonally long before that.

The
sandbar became an attraction for young drinkers around 20 years ago,
Payne said. Before that, the place attracted families in boats.

Payne agrees the rowdiness seemed to peak seven or eight years ago.

“I’m encouraged as long as this commitment to public safety is maintained,” Payne said.

TLPA considers its mission to keep pressure on police and government to maintain strict patrols.

“I will tell you, nobody who lives on the south end of the lake likes it. If you’re a homeowner, you don’t like it,” Payne said.

SPEEDWAY ON THE WATER

Paul
Fabiano owns a convenience store that bears his name and serves the
sandbar throughout summer, even delivering pizzas out to boaters.

“Ninety-five percent of our customers arrive here by boat,” Fabiano said. “We’re like a Speedway gas station on the water.”

He said normal weekends bring several hundred boats to the sandbar; the Fourth of July brings thousands.

Fabiano is from Lansing originally and didn’t know about the sandbar before he moved to Northern Michigan.

“I never even heard of the sandbar,” he said. “It was my wife – she’s originally from Charlevoix.”

Fabiano
believes the sandbar has only gotten more popular every year, with more
traffic meaning the family-run business pretty much takes up the
family’s summer.

“We
went out [to the sandbar] yesterday and that will probably be the only
time we’ll go out until September,” he said. “Once July Fourth gets
here, we never leave.”

PONTOON BURGERS

Berghoff
took over the Burger Barge when the young couple that started it were
expecting a child and they decided a floating restaurant was too much
for them.

Berghoff said the couple, who were friends of his daughter, planned the business well.

“They
looked out at the sandbar and they said, ‘There’s all these people and
they don’t have anything to eat,” Berghoff said. “They did tons of
research and found out what they had to go through to open the
business.”

When
Berghoff took over the Burger Barge in 2007, the menu included burgers,
chicken sandwiches and hot dogs served from a 16-foot pontoon boat.

He expanded the menu to include brats, veggie burgers and fish, which he serves from a 28-foot pontoon.

Berghoff is glad the police have made inroads stanching the bad behavior.

He believes he provides a service that helps calm things down.

“The
way I looked at it when I got there was, you know what? We provide food
where people are drinking. We provide nonalcoholic drinks where people
are getting dried out and they need to keep liquid in their bodies,” he
said. “We try to keep these people from only having alcohol.”